Neil Gaiman
|
|
Gaiman.jpg
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman () (born November 10, 1960 in Portchester, England) is the author of numerous science fiction and fantasy works, including many comic books. As of 2005, he lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
| Contents |
Biography
After being rejected many times by publishers, Gaiman pursued journalism as a means to learn about the world and make connections that he hoped would later assist him in getting published, conducting interviews and writing book reviews. During this time he wrote his first book, a now sought-after throwaway biography of the band Duran Duran, and a large number of articles for Knave magazine. In the late 1980s he wrote Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion in what he calls a "classic English humorist" style; in his opinion the book is what led to his collaboration with Terry Pratchett on the comic novel Good Omens, about an impending apocalypse. [1] (http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue345/interview.html)
After forming a friendship with famed comic book scribe Alan Moore, Gaiman started writing comics. He wrote two British graphic novels with his favorite collaborator and long time friend Dave McKean: Violent Cases and Signal to Noise. Afterwards, he landed a job with DC Comics, which resulted in the limited series Black Orchid.
Neil_gaiman.jpg
He has written a multitude of comics for several publishers, but his best-known work is the comics series The Sandman, which chronicles the adventures of Morpheus, the personification of Dream. (See Endless). The series started a small cultural sensation, gathering a devout following and making comic books respectable to many new audiences. The series began in 1988 and ended in 1996 when Gaiman simply announced that the story he began in the first issue had run its natural course. All 75 issues of the regular series have been collected into 10 volumes that are still in print and selling well.
In 1991, Gaiman published The Books of Magic, a four-part mini-series that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the DC Universe through a frame story about an English teenager who discovers that he has a destiny as the world's greatest wizard. The miniseries was popular, and spun off an ongoing series, also called The Books of Magic, written by John Ney Reiber. Many people have noted similarities between series protagonist Tim Hunter and the later and more famous Harry Potter; when referring to this similarity, Gaiman indicates that the young man as sorcerer has precedent in literature.
Gaiman also writes songs, poems and novels, and wrote the BBC dark fantasy television series Neverwhere, which he later adapted into a novel. He also wrote the screenplay for the movie MirrorMask with his old friend Dave McKean. In addition, he wrote the English language script to the anime movie Princess Mononoke.
Gaiman is a Board Member as well as an active supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and he regularly participates in fundraisers for the group including creating materials such as the original Snow, Glass, Apples (the CBLDF owns the copyright).
While Gaiman was writing American Gods, his publishers set up a promotional web site featuring a weblog in which Gaiman described the day-to-day process of writing (and then revising, publishing, promoting) the novel. After the novel was published, the web site evolved into a more general Official Neil Gaiman Web Site, and as of 2005 Gaiman still regularly adds to the weblog, describing the day-to-day process of being Neil Gaiman and writing, revising, publishing, or promoting whatever the current project is. Parts of the blog were extracted for publication in the New England Science Fiction Association Press collection of Gaiman miscellany, Adventures in the Dream Trade.
Gaiman received a World Fantasy Award for short fiction in 1991 for the Sandman issue, A Midsummer Night's Dream (see Dream Country). (Due to a subsequent rules change disqualifying comics for that category, Gaiman is the only writer to win that award for a comics script.) He received the 2002 Hugo Award for outstanding novel for American Gods, which also won the 2002 Nebula Award. In 2003 Coraline won the best novella award. In 2004, his short story "A Study in Emerald (http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/StudyinEmerald.asp)" won another Hugo (in a ceremony the author presided over himself, having volunteered for the job before his story was nominated). In addition, he has won 13 Eisner Awards for his comics work.
Gaiman has also written at least three drafts of a screenplay adaptation of Nicholson Baker's novel The Fermata for director Robert Zemeckis, although the project remains stalled in "development hell".
Gaiman forged an intense friendship with singer Tori Amos in the early nineties, far before she met stardom. As such he is constantly mentioned (often rather cryptically) in at least one of her songs on each of her albums. He also wrote the forewords to several of her tour programs as well as short stories to accompany her album "Strange Little Girls." (They appeared in the album booklet.) Some of her lyrical mentions: "If you need me, me and Neil'll be hangin' out with the dream king/Neil said hi, by the way" ("Tear In Your Hand," 1992); "Where's Neil when you need him?" ("Space Dog," 1994); "Will you find me if Neil makes me a tree?" ("Horses," 1996)...Gaiman based a character of a talking Tree on Amos; "Where are the Velvets?" ("Hotel," 1998 -- the Velvets being vampire-like characters from Gaiman's novel Neverwhere); "Get me Neil on the line, have him read Snow, Glass, Apples" ("Carbon," 2002).
Gaiman is also a friend of science fiction and comic book writer J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the television series Babylon 5. As such there is a species of aliens on that series called the Gaim; their heads closely resemble the helmet worn by Gaiman's Sandman character. However Straczynski has stated the aliens' appearance was based more on gas masks than on the King of Dreams' helm (itself inspired by the gas mask worn by the original World-War-2-era Sandman), and that the name came after the resemblance was noted. Gaiman is also the only writer other than Straczynski to have contributed to the series' final three seasons; he wrote the season 5 episode "Day of the Dead".
In 2002, Neil Gaiman filed and won a lawsuit against Todd McFarlane involving three supporting Spawn characters: Cogliostro, Medieval Spawn, and Angela.
As of 2005 he is working on a new novel, titled Anansi Boys.
Robert Zemeckis intends to make a film of Beowulf, based on a script by Gaiman and Roger Avary.
Bibliography
Comics & Graphic Novels
- Violent Cases (Titan Books, 1987) (with Dave McKean)
- Black Orchid #1-3 (DC Comics, 1988) (with Dave McKean)
- The Sandman #1-75 (DC Comics/Vertigo, 1989-1996) (with various artists)
- Miracleman #17-24 (Eclipse Comics, 1990-1993) (with various artists)
- Books of Magic #1-4 (DC Comics, 1991) (with various artists)
- Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus (1991) (a self-illustrated 14-page 24-hour comic published in Cerebus #147)
- Signal to Noise (VG Graphics/Dark Horse Comics, 1992) (with Dave McKean)
- Death: The High Cost of Living #1-3 (Vertigo, 1993) (with Chris Bachalo)
- The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch (Vertigo, 1994) (with Dave McKean)
- The Last Temptation (Marvel Comics, 1994) (with Michael Zulli)
- storyline based on Alice Cooper's album The Last Temptation, co-plotted and written by Mr Gaiman and Alice Cooper
- Angela #1-3 (Image Comics, 1995) (with Todd McFarlane)
- Death: The Time Of Your Life #1-3 ( Vertigo, 1996) (with Chris Bachalo)
- Stardust (Being A Romance Within The Realm of Faerie) #1-4 (Vertigo, 1997) (with Charles Vess)
- Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days (Vertigo, 1999) (collection of early work with various artists)
- Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame (DC Comics, 2000) (previously unpublished script with various artists)
- Harlequin Valentine (Dark Horse Comics, 2001) (with John Bolton)
- Murder Mysteries (Dark Horse Comics, 2002) (adapted by P. Craig Russell)
- 1602 #1-8 (Marvel Comics, 2003) (with Andy Kubert)
- Endless Nights (Vertigo, 2003) (with various artists)
Prose
(includes works consisting of illustrated text as opposed to comic-book form)
- Duran Duran: The Book (1985)
- Ghastly Beyond Belief: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Quotations (1985) (with Kim Newman, a collection of book/movie quotes)
- Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion (1987) (A guide to Douglas Adams' 'trilogy')
- We Can Get Them For You Wholesale (1989) (short story)
- Good Omens (1990) (with Terry Pratchett)
- Now we are Sick (1991) (co-editor, with Stephen Jones)
- Anthology of Nasty Verse with poems by Alan Moore, Ramsey Campbell, Gene Wolfe, R.A. Lafferty, Terry Pratchett, Brian Aldiss, Kim Newman, Diana Wynne Jones, etc.
- Angels and Visitations (1993) (a collection of short stories)
- Snow, Glass, Apples (1994) (short story illustrated by Charles Vess)
- SimCity 2000 (1995). Gaiman wrote the text under the description of the library under the button "Ruminate". (The basic idea came across in the first story in The Sandman: Worlds' End.)
- Neverwhere (1996, 1997 US)
- About Cats and Dogs (1997) (two short stories)
- Smoke And Mirrors (1998) (a collection of short stories)
- The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (1998) (a children's book illustrated by Dave McKean)
- Stardust (1998, 2000) (conventional novel without illustrations)
- The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (Vertigo, 1999) (with Yoshitaka Amano)
- American Gods (2001)
- Murder Mysteries (Biting Dog Press) (2001) (Limited edition script for the voice play with illustrations by George Walker)
- Adventures in the Dream Trade (2002) (a miscellany)
- Snow, Glass, Apples (Biting Dog Press) (2002) (Limited edition script for the voice play with illustrations by George Walker)
- A Walking Tour of the Shambles (2002) (with Gene Wolfe)
- Coraline (2002) (a children's book, US ed illustrated by Dave McKean)
- The Wolves in the Walls (2003) (illustrated by Dave McKean)
- Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night (2003) (with Gahan Wilson), compilation of stories by various writers and artists, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly
Audio
- Warning Contains Language (1995) (stories read by Gaiman, music by McKean)
- Signal to Noise (2000) (audio drama with full cast and music)
- American Gods (2002) (read by George Guidall)
- Coraline (2002) (US ed. read by Gaiman, UK ed. by Dawn French)
- Two Plays for Voices (2002) (Snow, Glass, Apples and Murder Mysteries with full cast & music)
- Telling Tales (2003) (Neil tells us stories: A Writer's Prayer; Harlequin Valentine; Boys and Girls Together; The Wedding Present, and In The End. Percussion by Robin Adnan Anders)
- Speaking in Tongues (2005)
- Mr Gaiman's song-writing and collaboration is also featured on:
- Alice Cooper's The Last Temptation
- The Flash Girls' The Return of Pansy Smith & Violet Jones, Maurice & I and Play Each Morning Wild Queen
- Folk UnderGround's Buried Things and Get Y'er Hands Off Me Booty!
- One Ring Zero's As Smart As We Are
- Gaiman has also been mentioned in albums by Tori Amos
External links
- Neil Gaiman's personal web site (http://www.neilgaiman.com/)
- Neil Gaiman's weblog (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp)
- Official site for children's books with Dave McKean (http://www.gaimanmckeanbooks.co.uk/) (UK publisher)
- Official site for children's books with Dave McKean (http://www.mousecircus.com/) (US publisher)
- Website (http://www.geocities.com/qwertyranch/flash.html) for The Flash Girls
- Websitefor (http://www.folkunderground.com) Folk UnderGround
- Joseph Campbell and Everyday Mythology (http://www.folkstory.com/campbell/)
- Template:Isfdb namecs:Neil Gaiman
de:Neil Gaiman es:Neil Gaiman fr:Neil Gaiman fi:Neil Gaiman he:ניל גיימן it:Neil Gaiman nl:Neil Gaiman no:Neil Gaiman pl:Neil Gaiman pt:Neil Gaiman sv:Neil Gaiman